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Sunday, August 12, 2012

Necessity and Vanity in Glyph Scribing

Ah Glyphs. I did say I would get to them didn't I? I know it's a bit later than I claimed it would be and I do apologize. There have been some updates too in the last couple of days. No Scroll of Resurrection for monks, but yes we can get the Recruit a Friend benefits. A few numbers adjustments for balance, vengeance modified, and more.

Before I get into glyphs I'm gonna let you in on some stuff others have been doing recently if you haven't seen them yet.

Monk and Monk has 2 posts on Shuffle Theorycraft: Here for part 1, and here for part 2. I love math but I've just never known where to begin on figuring this stuff out. /jealous

And for those interested in the deep stuff, don't ever forget Elitist Jerks.

So anyway, into the glyphs! There are 24 Major Glyphs and 11 Minor Glyphs for Monks (as it stands and will most likely stay). That's quite a bit of variety. I'll begin here with the Major Glyphs.

Major Glyphs

Afterlife (Windwalker) - Very nice for leveling and probably even PvP. I would certainly recommend it as at some times while I leveled even fighting 1 normal mob could drop me 20-30% HP and self Healing Sphere for 18k out of 300k hp is not fun times.

Breath of Fire (Brewmaster) - Not to be confused as modifying the very awesome series of 16-bit console games, this glyph is very nice for reducing damage taken by a group of mobs. Since Keg Smash applies Dizzying Haze there is no reason this would not be useful.

Clash (Brewmaster) - Nothing amazingly special here but increased range on anything that helps with your mobility is always welcome. Especially when it means you can handle incoming mobs sooner/from further away.

Crackling Jade Lightning - As I'm still not sure where entirely CJL fits into usefulness I'm not too sure on this one, but if you like CJL then this is definitely a buff to it. PvP or perhaps if you choose to level as Mistweaver?

Enduring Healing Sphere - This brings the duration up to 5 whole minutes, making it possible to really plan ahead on the use of Healing Sphere. Tactical planning could make quite a bit of use out of this.

Expel Harm - Hmph, 20 yard EH instead of 10 yard. As with CJL I see the increased range here something more suited to Mistweavers using EH as a self heal with some bonus dmg or to PvP situations where you can't guarantee enemy distance.

Fists of Fury (Windwalker) - This one, well, seems nice right? Parrying every attack while you Fist of Fury should definitely seem like a bonus. However part of Fists of Fury is stunning the enemy so this is more useful if you're getting hit by enemies outside the range of the attack, although better positioning will fix that too. This glyph attempts to land a hit, and then just gets parried by lack of usefulness.

Fortifying Brew (Brewmaster) - This puts FBrew at 25% DR and +10% HP. Bit of a tradeoff but ultimately I think it's the better way to go for tanking. As a tank the bonus HP will matter less as you'll have healer focus, and the extra DR will make a bigger difference in big hitting boss abilities.

Leer of the Ox (Brewmaster) - A very interesting ability this one. Not sure if there are any restrictions on use against bosses but can definitely be used as one of those last second life saving abilities, either for yourself to give the healer a chance to pick you up from low health, or even as a means to control extra adds. There is no range limit for how far from the target you can be so it could be used from as far away as you can see the mob (as long as it's near enough the statue). Also useful for kiting and mob ping pong.

Life Cocoon (Mistweaver) - Probably don't need to say much here as this is quite straight forward. Mostly PvP but if there are stun boss abilities out there it can be useful in those fights as a situational thing.

Mana Tea (Mistweaver) - This glyph can be key in fights without much room to channel your Mana Tea. Perhaps even a preference kind of glyph it can be very useful if you'd rather take your tea down in small sips than a long chug.

Path of Blossoms - Gives you 4 Fire Blossoms instead of 3. That's really it. I can see some use in Fire Blossoms, and having more of them, but still, sub-par to me.

Renewing Mist (Mistweaver) - This might actually be my preferred mechanic for Renewing Mist. While it seems like it only changes how it paths, what this glyph really does is double the range, making it a lot more useful in fights where the group/raid has to spread out and people might not be within 20 yards of each other.

Retreat - The only way to reduce threat for Monks this glyph could be very important. I say "could" because we know that playing the threat meter has been reduced drastically, and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Although if there's ever a reason to use Roll/Chi Torpedo to get yourself out of trouble, there's also a reason to let it reduce threat.

Sparring (Windwalker) - Another one that seems to be most used while leveling. I could see this being useful in challenge modes as well though, allowing you to be a little more defensive and help in the control of adds/loose mobs.

Spinning Crane Kick - While handy, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of practical use for this. The only time I can think of this as being majorly useful would be killing the Devout Followers in the High Priestess Azil encounter of Stonecore. Mistweavers could find it useful for AE healing on the move.

Stoneskin - Very situational. Like the dwarven racial but bleed effect specific. Likely to be most useful for Brewmasters in a fight that produces a lot of bleed damage, or PvP where you're expecting to counter cats/bears.

Surging Mist (Mistweaver) - This glyph returns Surging Mist to the way it worked earlier in the beta, this should be a glyph of choice for Mistweavers looking to go the Eminence route for healing.

Touch of Death - Quite straightforward for this glyph. You never have to worry about building up to 3 chi to spend on Touch of Death when you're able to use it, you just have to wait 3.5 minutes between uses. I like this one so far because you can just save ToD for dungeon bosses since trash dies so fast, and there's plenty of time between each one to get over the cooldown.

Touch of Karma (Windwalker) - Handy in situations where you're taking damage, but not next to the mob you're taking damage from. By extending the range it allows you to activate your ToK and get some extra damage in while away from the target.

Transcendence - Turning a 40 yard range into a 50 yard range might be useful? Likely to be situational, if used at all. Depending on what you manage to get out of Transcendence.

Uplift (Mistweaver) - Changing the Uplift cost to mana instead of Chi means you wouldn't have to ever worry about using up Chi on it. I could be wrong, but this sounds more useful if you use Uplift on occasion rather than constantly, as to not eat up all your mana with it.

Zen Meditation - Being able to soak up the damage the group/raid is taking while moving to a new position. You could use it simply to cover people that aren't moving fast enough out of floor fire.

Whew, that was a lot of major glyphs. There are still the minor glyphs left to go. Minor glyphs are certainly all about utility and visual effects.

Blackout Kick
- There's no spec restriction on this but it should be Windwalker as
that's the BoKick effect it's referring to. This would be handy once
you're in more dungeon/raid situations than solo situations to keep your
damage high despite move happy tanks.

Fighting Pose - When you cast Transcendence normally you're in the floating/sitting pose as you've seen here before. In this case though it looks like you're in active combat instead.

Flying Serpent Kick (Windwalker) - For people with poor timing or a lot of latency this can make FSK a lot more useful.

Honor - Bowing after defeating an enemy is a sign of respect. Do you respect your foes? Not likely, but still a nice visual addition to getting the killing blow every time you hit ToD.

Jab - Keep your weapons sheathed with this one. No longer will you look silly whipping out the giant polearm for 1 hit, just to put it back the next second.

Rising Tiger Kick (Windwalker) - Just like Crackling Tiger Lightning this changes the color of Rising Sun Kick to a nice white arc.

Spinning Fire Blossom (Windwalker) - Makes the spell a lot more reliable for the loss of the root. This would be useful for bosses to deal some extra damage while you're not in range.

Spirit Roll - Who doesn't want to be able to roll around while dead? Of course if you're not dying much it's not very useful. (Or if you die a lot where you end up on a spirit gryphon).

Water Roll - Seems pretty nifty, but most likely isn't. Seriously Roll/Chi Torpedo is such a short distance I would be using other minor glyphs over this one.

Zen Flight - Zen flight is awesome. Instant cast and useful for getting around above thing short distance. I say short because it only increases your speed by 60% which is well shy of the 310% you can get up to with any regular flying mount.

Finally that's all of them! There are a lot of options here. Get out there and check them out, because we have a mere 44 days to go!

1 comment:

Water roll is potentially useful in PvP situations. A lot of battlegrounds have little river bits that are really useful to zoom across quickly rather than get bogged down with an accidental pitch-down or tied up fighting on a bridge.

Not sure if it's as good as other minor glyphs in PvP, but I could see using it in that situation.